Charity

£5 of every membership of St Albans Businesses goes directly to our charity, HomeStart Herts. When SABS was being formed we wanted to support a charity (because that’s what communities do) and HomeStart had just had a chunk of their funding cut and were restructuring. The lovely Suzy Moody who runs HomeStart Herts has been involved with SABS from the beginning and supports our efforts as we support hers. Most of the fees for our events include a Homestart donation and it’s great to know that we help make a difference to families in our area who need a bit of extra support.

Rather than try and explain what they do, we asked Suzy too…

Home-Start Herts’ volunteer Family Mentors help families with young children deal with the challenges they face. We support parents as they learn to cope, improve their confidence and build better lives for their children.

From when the St Albans scheme was independently established in 2000*, until now, approximately 1300 families and 2,600 children have been supported in St Albans City and District.
*merged with other Hertfordshire schemes in 2015

Each year the number of referrals we receive across Hertfordshire increase in number and level of need.
In St Albans City and District alone we have supported 48 families which includes approximately 100 children (April 2017 – April 2018).

Despite the affluent appearance of St Albans, the areas of Batchwood, Sopwell and Cunningham, fall within the 40% most deprived areas in England (Index of Multiple Deprivation 2015).
But it is not necessarily about deprivation. When a family suffers a bereavement, a child or parent have a disability; when a parent is isolated and suffers with depression or the family have relocated to escape domestic abuse; caring for children and getting through each day becomes overwhelming. These are issues that could affect any one of us!

SAB have supported Home-Start by raising over £7,000, which has provided support for 7 families.

“It has been wonderful to see Rosie build up a relationship with our volunteer. She smiles when our doorbell goes and has even started trying to vocalise her name which is impressive for a child that only says 2 or 3 people’s names! I have also really enjoyed having some adult company as it often feels very isolating having a child with additional needs.
Thank you for the emotional support, practical help and for bringing some sunshine into Rosie’s life.”

We are also very happy to support other charities in the area too and offer free membership, as well as free slots in our publication, BizCom! This enables charities to gain more exposure by featuring their events on our events page, their profile and news, all of which gets shared via our various social media platforms and via our members – result!